5th Round Pick Jack Crawford – a Project or a Star in the Making?

NFL.com reports that the Raiders are thinking they are going to get a lot from 5th round pick Jack Crawford, though many think that as of now, he’s simply a project.

The consensus on Oakland Raiders fifth-round defensive end Jack Crawford has been that he’s a project. Although he’s physically impressive at 6-foot-5 and 274 pounds, with 33 1/2-inch arms and 10 1/4-inch hands, Crawford was late to the game, he did not begin playing football until he was a junior in high school, he only moved to the United States from London in high school.

In a 49-game career at Penn State, Crawford produced 14 sacks, with most of that production (12 of his 14 sacks) coming in his sophomore and senior seasons. The book on Crawford is that he lacks creativity as a pass-rusher, and will need to hone his technique and add more moves to his repertoire, the same could probably be said of a lot of pass-rushers entering the league, though. Despite the lowered expectations, the Raiders expect Crawford to contribute in 2012, writes Paul Gutierrez of CSN Bay Area. “He’s big, athletic, runs really well,” Raiders head coach Dennis Allen said. “And he’s had some production, and so again we look for versatility in guys and we try to find roles for specific guys and I think as you look at him, as we get a chance to work with him, I think we’re going to be able to define a pretty good role for him.”